The BJP government in Bengal will discontinue the Krishak Bandhu scheme introduced by the Mamata Banerjee government, and all eligible beneficiaries will be brought under the centrally funded PM-Kisan scheme.

"I have asked the department officials to verify the beneficiary list of Krishak Bandhu. It is suspected that many ineligible and non-existent people were getting benefits under the scheme meant for the farmers. We will include all the eligible beneficiaries in the PM-Kisan scheme," said Dudh Kumar Mondal, the agriculture minister, at Nabana on Thursday.

Under the Krishak Bandhu scheme, farmers having one or more than one acre of land were getting ₹10,000 annually, and those with less than one acre of land were getting a minimum of ₹4,000 a year.

The state was spending about ₹8,000 crore annually to run the scheme, as 1.14 crore beneficiaries were registered under the scheme.

Since the last agriculture census suggested that there were about 72 lakh farmers in the state, many in the administration raised questions about how the number of beneficiaries surpassed the total number of farmers in a scheme that was mainly introduced to support peasants with land in their possession to cultivate their plots.

Sources said if the Krishak Bandhu scheme was withdrawn and the eligible farmers were included in PM-Kishan, the state would be relieved of a huge financial burden. "The state spends more than ₹8,000 crore annually to run the schemes. If the PM-Kisan replaces the scheme completely, the state would not have to spend anything as the scheme is entirely funded by the centre," said a source.